Yakir Kaufman

Yakir Kaufman was born in Haifa and received his MD from the Hebrew University Hadassah Faculty of Medicine in 1994. In 1995 he became a resident doctor at the Department of Neurology of the Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem. Dr. Kaufman is a member of the Israel Neurological Association and the Israel Integrative Medicine Society. He spent two years in Toronto, Canada, as a Fellow in the Behavioural Neurology Program at the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care and the Rotman Institute.

Since his return to Jerusalem in 2004, he has joined the medical staff of Herzog Memorial Hospital (now called the Herzog Integrative Medical Center), where he heads the Department of Neuropsychogeriatrics and has founded the Brain Health Center, which combines conventional and complementary medicine, using also a spiritual approach, placing the patient at the center of the healing process. In addition to teaching medicine with an integrative approach at the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, Dr. Kaufman founded and heads the spiritual support program for patients and caregivers at Herzog Hospital. He is a member of the steering committee of the Israeli Network of the Jewish Spiritual Support Organizations. His research on behavioral neurology focuses on psychoneuroimmunology (PNI—the science linking body and mind) and the link between spirituality and health.